I am a consultant and the author of 24 books on artificial intelligence and the semantic web. I use this blog to share ideas and code snippets using my favorite languages: Clojure, Java, Haskell, Common Lisp, and Ruby.

Sunday, December 03, 2017

Forget the whole world and focus on your world

Some people dream of “making it big,” dreaming of starting the next Facebook or Google. Poor people fantasize about becoming very wealthy. I think this is misplaced focus.

I prefer to live in and think about a much smaller world:

Being of service to family and friends and enjoying their company

Being of value to coworkers and customers

Providing value and entertainment to people who read my books

Getting a lot of exercise and eating great food, in small portions

Enjoy reading great books and watching great movies

Yes, that is enough for me. I leave changing the world for other people.

6 comments:

There is wisdom in "think globally and act locally". Pragmatic, as it emphasizes acting where one has the greatest likelihood of effective interaction and exploitation of latent synergies that will tend to promote present but evolving values over an expanding scope of higher order consequences.

I get it.But do you think AGI is feasable? If yes, do you think there is a way that it could remain beneficial to humankind?

The internet has given individuals a potentially far reaching voice. You're such an individual. How many people have your wisdom, knowledge and experience (as well as ability and willingness to make time for the important stuff)?

Can you afford not to engage in the most important question of our time? At least as a 6th bullet point...